Ingevity Corporation Jefferies Global Industrials Conference 2026

Thanks, Dan. First, thanks for having us at the conference. Enjoy being here, and I think the team at Jefferies does a great job. Just to go into what's been happening at the company for the past year or so, there's been a lot going on.

Yeah. If we start with where we came from, the company, about a year ago, had a portfolio of businesses that were high-quality businesses.

However, some of them did not fit, introduced a lot of volatility. We went through a portfolio review, and then back last December, we made some declarative thoughts around the portfolio going forward, and that's what we've been really focused on over the past year or so, which is streamlining the company. We announced the divestiture or an intention to divest three businesses that we thought were not core. As you mentioned, we're through two of those divestments, and the third is well underway. We think by the end of this year, we'll be through with that portfolio transformation.

I think really what that's allowed us to do is really become more focused, allow the quality of those underlying core businesses, which are Performance Materials and Pavement Technologies, to really shine through. It's also allowed us to focus on performance. I think our results have been really good over the last several quarters, despite a pretty dynamic macro environment. Also, internally, we've taken that time to double down on a very strong company culture. We call it the IngeviWay. We've also refreshed the leadership team. A lot of things going on with the business. At the same time, I think we spent a lot of time focusing on strengthening the balance sheet. I'll let Phil go through some of those achievements and what we're thinking about going forward.

Yeah. I will just add on to what Dave said. The core businesses that we expect to remain within new Ingevity, those being Performance Materials and Pavement Technologies, they are less cyclical businesses than what we have had in the past. It gives us much more forecastability of free cash flow, and that has given us the ability to pay down debt. A year ago from today, we were 3.0 on our net leverage to EBITDA. Sitting here today, as of Q2 of 2026, we are at 2.5, which is right within our target range. These two businesses will enable us to maintain that balance sheet flexibility and that strength going into the future, especially as we think about the next phase of Ingevity and the growth that we expect.

Thanks for that piercing question. I feel like for us, really, it is more building onto a very strong culture. The Ingevity culture is very strong to begin with, so just refining different aspects of it. Where we are seeing additional resources are some of the new areas we are focused in. For example, filtration, where we just talked about our first win in PFAS, which is one of the most demanding applications for water treatment. We are adding focus there. Filtration is going to be a big part of Ingevity in the future. I think it is more about adding resources and capabilities than changing folks out. When I came on board, one of the things I was wondering about, frankly, is, okay, how much is this organization up for this amount of change? I have been really encouraged by just the appetite for winning.

There is a lot of momentum at the company today.

Yeah. First of all, filtration is not new for Ingevity. We've actually been participating in the business for many years. But in our history, what we've typically done is just basically treat it as an outlet. Any additional activated carbon that we were not selling into automotive, we would outlet into filtration. What we've pivoted to is putting a dedicated team in place. We've also brought in some consultants and some subject matter experts and really looked at where in filtration do we think our solutions, our activated carbon is differentiated and can provide differentiated performance. One of those areas that we're very excited about is PFAS. As everyone probably knows, it's not a new issue, but it's one that's gaining more and more visibility. Next year, for example, it's widely expected for most municipalities in the U.S. to start reporting out PFAS levels in the water.

What we've determined is our activated carbon, which is made out of hardwood and is in powdered form, is one of the most cost-effective ways to address the PFAS issue. We are being called in by water treatment facilities, by municipalities that are trying to address this PFAS challenge. We think we're right at the beginning stages, Dan. There's a lot of effort going on beyond, obviously, Ingevity. We think, just to use some industry estimates, we think the market today for activated carbon and PFAS is over $1 billion, growing at double digits, so expected to grow quite rapidly, and we think we definitely have a role to play in that solution.

Yeah. The really encouraging thing for us is that, as I mentioned, we've already been participating in different applications in filtration, including food and beverage and biopharma. Our hardwood-activated carbon also, similarly to PFAS, has shown to have a significant differentiation and capability in those other areas. For example, in food and beverage, our activated carbon is really good at taking out odor and color. If you're thinking about a hard seltzer that you might enjoy on the weekend, a lot of that goes through a purification process that needs to take out the color and flavor first before, obviously, the end flavor is added in. That's typically an activated carbon process and could be using our activated carbon. Biopharma is another area where we found that our activated carbon is particularly good at taking out large molecules.